SMI NewsBrief Monday, May 7, 2018 — Game-day facts compiled by Jack Garrity

109 senior golfers from the greater Jacksonville area teed it up today at Marsh Creek Country Club for the 249th match in the Senior Men's Interclub series. Three huzzahs for Marsh Creek's rep, Vinnie Celestino, and his golf professional, Cary Splane PGA, who coordinated today's event. They delivered preround announcements (pictured) in front of the practice green before sending 56 carts to their starting tees around 8:56 am. Given the length of the cart queues, we estimate the shotguns for the 1st tee and the 14th tee, the furthest distant from the clubhouse, would be separated by nearly sixteen minutes.

Rookies and Veterans

Fifteen golfers earned a round of applause for playing in their first Interclub event:

• Tom Grant from Deercreek • Lex Lisenby from Eagle Harbor • Dennis Fallen from Jacksonville • Neil Amato, Alan Keary, Bob Lane, Steve Matman, and

Matthew McCarty from Marsh Creek • Joe McCaw from Marsh Landing • Norb Wiesnet from Osprey Cove • Lee Ashburn, Frank Guarino, Pat Long, and Rick Roberts

from Palencia and • Bill Beasley from Sawgrass.

Today's field also included three gentlemen who were celebrating an Interclub milestone:

• Frank Cardile and Jack Johnson from Long point and Jim Matheson from Queen's Harbour were playing their 25th SMI round.

Game-day Setting

All in all, it was a glorious spring day for cruising between 5 to 19 feet above sea level and moving a golf ball across a landscape maintained to perfection by the course superintendent, Tim Lyons, CGCS and his grounds crew. Kudos to them for keeping the fairways, rough, hazards, and greens in pristine condition.

As the carts were launched, the thermometer stood at 75F, the anemometer registered a gust-free six mph under partly cloudy skies. When the first scorecard was returned at 1:42 pm, the

temperature had risen to 80F and the wind speed had increased to 13 mph, still gust-free and partly cloudy.

Thanks to Marsh Creek's clubhouse staff for giving us top-notch service under the direction of its General Manager, Tom Carter PGA; Asst. Professional, Bud Dolores PGA; Food & Beverage Director, Dan Bush PGA; and Executive Chef, David Hardy.

Our very special thanks and a tip of 109 hats go to Pam and Billie (below) for hustling around the course with a well stocked supply of snacks and beverages for hungry, thirsty senior golfers.

Today's Competition

In the monthly event, we compete to determine the top four teams on the day; each of the winning teams' players receives a golf-shop merchandise certificate. In addition, for each par-3 hole, the player who lands closest to the flagstick receives a sleeve of golf balls.

Charting today's scores against those made in April at Marsh Landing (below) suggests today's course, although 100 yards shorter, played a tad more difficult. While 54 percent of the players at Marsh Landing last month beat their handicaps, 51 percent of the players at Marsh Creek did likewise this month. Said another way, the average player at Marsh Landing scored 35.7 points and 2.1 strokes under bogey while the average player at Marsh Creek scored 34.7 points and 0.8 strokes under bogey. More to the point, the average player took 1.8 strokes less today than in the previous match here in February 2017, both rounds from the same tees with the same ratings.

Today's Leaderboard

The following table compares the order of finish in our previous event to the order of finish today. In first place, Hidden Hills edged Long Point and Sawgrass by a four-point margin. That's the first time this year that our defending 2017 champion has finished among the top four. Once again, Marsh Creek failed to cash in on its home advantage in thirteen tries—holding the all-time league record in that category.

In summary, six teams rose and six teams fell with Orange Park tumbling nine places from last month's ranking.

At Marsh Landing last month, all 14 teams exceeded the odds of scoring their team points. This month, 13 teams exceeded the odds of scoring their team points. Ideally, we'd like to see seven teams beat the odds and seven teams lose to the odds.

The full scoreboard is here.

32 individual merchandise certificates were distributed to the top four teams as follows:

1st place Hidden Hills $43 per man 2nd place Long Point $31 3rd place Sawgrass $22 4th place Marsh Landing $13

Season's Leaderboard

Each year, we compete to identify the SMI Champion, which is the team with the most Stableford points for the season. The winning team takes custody of the Barney Poston Cup and retains it for a year. In addition, the top six teams earn a share of the year-end prize pool which totaled $1,850 last year.

The following table shows how team standings on the season changed over the month. In summary, seven teams rose and seven teams fell this month. 31 players lowered their indexes by shooting good scores while 30 players padded their indexes for the coming events by shooting relatively poor scores.

Team Leaders

Generally, we say a big gun is someone who helps his team into one of the top four places by scoring at least 36 points. Why 36 points? That marks the line where a player overcomes 2:1 odds. Today 43 players crossed that threshold; 23 of those were on the prize-winning teams. When the course is easier than most on the SMI rotation, you can expect a bevy of players will lie above the 36-point cutline. For example, on average each team's seventh player scores 29 points which corresponds to 1:4 odds. Today, 19 players scored 29 points or less.

Individual Leaderboard

Ten odds-breakers filled the twelve slots shown on today's individual leaderboard (below). In all, 30 players beat the odds associated with their handicap indexes while 30 players failed to match even odds.

Outstanding Shooters

Birdies 3 Ed Earle PA, Jerry Deans OP, Bill Beasley SG 2 Eleven players 65 Today's total (2017 average=56.5 birdies)

Closest to the Flagstick

Hole 04 John Felice QH 3' 7" Hole 07 Allan Dolman HH 2' 2" Hole 15 Bob McBride WG 4' 11½" Hole 17 Vinnie Celestino MC 7' 7"

Toughest Holes

On average we record 94 pickups at each event. Today's course drew 108 pickups, meaning Marsh Creek forced two more pickups today than our last time here in February 2017. The all-time high, 225 pickups, was set at Ponte Vedra Inn on December 10, 2010. Today, hole 7 drew a single pickup while hole 2, the second toughest hole, forced the most pickups, 14.

Scorer's Table Woes

Your scorekeeper (me) made a stupid error today by configuring our scoring app on a rogue version rather than on last month's app. As a result, the scoring operation was brought to its knees: it took one hour to process twenty cards. Staying on that course would have meant five hours to finish scoring. It would have been better to close the scanner and use the numeric keypad to enter scorecard data manually. Alas, your scorekeeper lost the system mouse which is far easier to operate than the PC touchpad. Before we condemn your scorekeeper, please consider these mitigating factors: he was up at 4:00 am to load our equipment and deliver the scorecards by 7:15 am; and he spent 3½ hours driving back and forth to reload a missing flash drive. Your scorekeeper apologizes to the top four prize-winning teams and especially to Vinnie Celestino, our Tournament Director, for the inconvenience.

You may ask, "Why do we use bubble cards rather than keypad data entry?"

• Speed. Our goal is to finish scoring when the last player returns his card. That's happened several times and should happen every time.

• Accuracy. When Census 2000 analyzed 1.5 million forms, they found a significant difference between processing data by optical mark recognition (OMR) and keyboard entry: the error rate was 1.3% and 5%, respectively.

Pace of Play

Before this match, our scorecard proxy model predicted the fastest group would play its round—starting tee to ending green—in 4h 27m. In fact, Group 03B was the fastest group, finishing in 4h 20m. Congratulation to our pace-of-play rabbits: Paul Rothstein DC, Leigh Livesay JG, Shelby Gunter PA, and Steve LaFave OC.

On the other hand, today's turtles took 39 minutes longer to play the same course and finished with a 17 minute gap behind the group ahead.

Performance Forecast

Since November 2016, we have predicted the order of finish for each SMI match. Make of it what you will but our record is at least as reliable as the annual Punxsutawney Phil forecast. It certainly beats the oddsmakers in Las Vegas and the Orange Park Kennel Club handicappers . The following table is typical: this month, we correctly picked two of four in the upper bracket, two of five in the middle bracket, and two of five in the lower bracket.

Next Match

What: Seventh match in the 2018 season When: 9:00 am, Monday, June 4, 2018 Where: The Club at Osprey Cove A Mark McCumber design (2004) 5,713 yards, 68.3/125/91.5 (course/slope/bogey) Who: Jon Peterson, Tournament Director Rob Ellis, PGA, Director of Golf Defending: Last time here, in March 2017, Eagle Harbor took first place by three points over Long Point, overcoming Osprey Cove's home advantage by seven points. In 12 tries at home, Osprey Cove has taken first place two times.

Financial News

Bruce MacDonald QH, our league treasurer, filed his latest end-of-month report as shown in the table below. The current balance increases each month in order to fund the team prizes and door prizes that will be distributed at the next Barney Poston Cup event.

Website News

Support a fellow-competitor who has sponsored for many years an advertisement on our web pages. His latest ad is tagged as Tex Blinn, Contractor on our Home Page. Tex plays out of Hidden Hills Golf Club. He's a very good contractor and is ready to serve your remodeling needs. Give him a try.

Clicking on Google ads pays off. Doing so from our webpages puts cash in our bank account. Each click generates income that helps to offset the annual cost of our web site. Google last sent us a check for $101.78. Our current earnings have held steady at $63.88, the same amount as at last report. Google will pay us when the amount due is $100 or more.

From KDT

Hidden Hills AGS PTS ODDS

Currey, Ron HH 81 44 28:1

Dolman, Allan HH 92 40 6:1

Vince, Dave HH 81 39 6:1

Dismore, Larry HH 93 37 3:1

Luck, Robin HH 77 37 3:1

Morrison, Mark HH 90 37 2:1

1st Place

Long Point AGS PTS ODDS

Ferguson, Jim LP 84 45 33:1

Watson, Al LP 86 39 4:1

Fruechtenicht, Dick LP 93 38 2:1

Kepple, Gene LP 83 38 5:1

2nd Place

Sawgrass AGS PTS ODDS

Dalziel, Mark SG 89 41 9:1

Kontny, Mark SG 76 41 15:1

Beasley, Bill SG 81 37 4:1

Caden, John SG 85 37 3:1

Petrie, Tom SG 90 36 3:1

Swerbenski, Bill SG 86 36 2:1

3rd Place

Marsh Landing AGS PTS ODDS

Cabano, Ray ML 85 42 16:1

Hamil, Ned ML 89 42 14:1

Vines, Fred ML 93 38 3:1

DePinto, Tony ML 99 37 2:1

Gould, Don ML 98 36 1:1

4th Place